Upward Basketball 2025

For twenty-five years, Cave Spring Baptist Church has been engaging Roanoke with the gospel through its basketball ministry.

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ROANOKE, VA - For one mother, participation in Upward Basketball at Cave Spring Baptist Church (CSBC) was “fun to watch your kids be happy and feel confident and learn a skill, especially one that I can’t teach them because I’m not super great at sports,” said Al Bradley after the final day of the 2025 basketball season, which was also the conclusion of the church’s twenty-fifth annual season.

“It’s really nice to see them get better every year and become more confident. They have fun and they never seem nervous or overwhelmed. They seem excited to play,” added the mother of four, who plays piano at CSBC for most Sunday worship services.

For the Bradleys, it’s a family affair. “My husband coaches and we can all be in one location. I’m not here with one son, while my husband’s with another son. We can always make it to everyone’s game. That’s very nice!” she noted.

Her son, Phin Bradley, a second-grader at Penn Forest Elementary School, said Upward Basketball “was really fun” because he made four new friends, three from a different school, and because (setting aside the Eighth Commandment for a moment) twice he stole the basketball from another player. After dribbling the ball downcourt and shooting with all his might, the ball, unfortunately, bounced off the backboard.

Phin Bradley, 7, who played for his team, the Golden Gophers, explained that he especially liked that the basketball games were played at his church “because church is good for you and we learn about God.”

Starting with weekly team practice sessions three weeks before Christmas and continuing with games every Friday night and Saturday from January through March 1, when the final games were played, the CSBC gym was filled to near capacity.

Upward 2025 welcomed 266 children (kindergarten to fourth grade on twenty-eight teams), sixty-two youth (fifth to eighth grade on six teams) and twenty-seven cheerleaders (on three cheer squads). They were served by sixty-nine basketball coaches and seven cheer coaches.

More than a hundred parents and grandparents attended each game; while their players ran energetically and shot baskets, they cheered enthusiastically and shot photos.

All the logistics and other details were coordinated by Jason and Candace Deweber, church members who dedicated many hours after work and on weekends to making the basketball ministry a success.

A church program no matter how worthy doesn’t typically last twenty-five years. Recruiting, orienting, and motivating volunteers for a church program for that many years, for a ministry that is focused on the community, “can be challenging,” he commented.

Deweber said the benefits of Upward Basketball to the church include “attracting unchurched people who otherwise might not enter a sanctuary on a Sunday morning or attend a Bible study class.” When introduced to a friendly church family, they can “hear about God in a nonthreatening environment in a gym.”

“It’s more than a league in that we focus, not just on athletics, but also on making sure that the kids are mentally, athletically, spiritually, and socially strong. We’re trying to do more than just make good basketball players, but trying to make good humans,” he stated.

Planning for the next season will commence in August. Some years there has been a waiting list for spots on a basketball team. “This year,” he noted, “we actually tried to clean off our waiting list and let every kid in we could based on the order that they signed up.” Children of any or no religious faith are welcome to apply for the 2026 program.

Rainbow Forest Baptist Church in Troutville is the only other Upward program in the region and, said Deweber, there is a need for another church in a different part of Roanoke to step up and begin an Upward league.

Jeff Baylor, an Upward coach and a CSBC deacon, appreciated the church’s basketball ministry because “it gets kids off the PlayStation and moving up and down the court. They need to exercise, and it’s just a good experience for them to be out with their peers and learning the game of basketball. They get to not only learn basketball, but get to learn how to make friends.”

“When I moved to this community, these programs were already in place and my kids went through them. I think it’s important to give back to the community.”

Baylor especially enjoyed “the challenges of getting the youth to listen to you and to watch them develop and become young players—and to just play fair.”

The coach knelt in the middle of the court while his young team sat quietly for a moment of prayer before each game. “We pray for their safety and we give thanks to God for allowing us to be out here with them and that they are here. I think the spiritual component is most important,” he added, “because it also teaches the kids to be good citizens, not just good athletes, and it gives them a sense of responsibility of being a good person.”

For Chip Baggett, CSBC’s children, students, and families pastor, Upward is about “engaging our community with the gospel through the sport of basketball. Upward is one of the most significant ministries we have that reaches out into our community.”

“The number of people who come to our church who don’t know the gospel, that don’t have a church home—but who regularly come to our church [for a basketball game],” he said, “is a huge mission field for us. Using the platform of basketball to share the gospel and to love our community is an amazing ministry.”

Twenty-five years of basketball ministry “is evidence of a church’s commitment to their community. It’s evidence of many people sharing the load. One person or one couple cannot do this scale of ministry without the support of a local church. So it speaks to a church-wide effort,” Baggett concluded.

Many of the Upward 2025 participants responded when asked to give bags of nonperishable goods for the Blue Ridge Women’s Center, a Roanoke ministry that provides a safe and caring environment for women who need an array of medical and social services other than pregnancy termination. The donations filled a large trailer. The church supports the center all year.

The national Upward Sports staff assists congregations who want to “customize the best sports experience for your church, strengthening your outreach efforts [and] promoting Jesus through the avenue of sports.”

For more information, plan to attend the Upward team workshop June 28, 2025, at Bon Air Baptist Church in Richmond, VA. Go online to www.upward.org/team-workshops-2025 and choose Richmond or another city.

Dan Nicholas, a member of Cave Spring Baptist Church, Roanoke, VA, is managing editor for the Baptist Churches of New England (bcne.net/news).

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